


Grief, Abstracted

by sheafrotherdon



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25674799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: Nile doesn’t come apart, and she doesn’t come apart, and she doesn’t come apart for days.
Comments: 61
Kudos: 396





	Grief, Abstracted

Nile doesn’t come apart, and she doesn’t come apart, and she doesn’t come apart for days. She expects it—knows that everything’s gnawing at her in some deep place she can’t quite reach—but her grief seems like an abstraction given everything else. There’s too much to occupy her—travel; two new safe houses in two days; every scrap of information she can absorb about what they’ll do next; her never-ceasing sense that she should be looking over her shoulder no matter where they are or what they do.

It’s when they get to the third safe house that it happens. It doesn’t well up as anger that she can throw at Andy with her fists, or in direct, hostile questions she can put to Nicky knowing that he’ll accept them with equanimity. It happens when she’s on her own, after she’s run through the hills above the town and back again, when she sits on the low garden wall behind the house and tries to catch her breath and her breath won’t come. There’s a roaring in her ears—she pulls out her earbuds, but it doesn’t seem to help—and her hands tremble as she clenches and unclenches them, trying to get some kind of grasp on what’s happening. Her heart beats furiously in her chest, harder now than when she was running, and she feels light-headed and sick.

Someone cautiously steps around her and crouches in front of her.

“Can I touch your hands?” asks Joe.

Nile wants to ask where he came from, what he saw that brought him outside, but instead she nods, and grips his hands the moment his fingers touch hers.

“Focus on that,” Joe says evenly. “Focus on that touch. Ignore everything else.”

His hands are warm and larger than hers, his skin lighter. He rubs a thumb across the back of her fingers, and she latches on to the movement, watches it intently, back and forth, back and forth. Her chest is so tight it hurts, and her mind runs quickly through a hundred scenarios for what might be happening. She’s losing it, Nile thinks, trying to swallow around the sudden tightness in her throat.

“When you think you can, I want you to tell me three things you can see,” Joe says.

See? She jerks her head up, flinches back when she meets his eyes. “You,” she offers immediately, and lets her eyes dart away. “A tree. Grass.”

“Three things you can hear?”

Nile swallows, knows this drill, has walked so many others through it. She closes her eyes for a second to listen, trying to hear something above the rattling of her heart. “A bird. Two different kinds of bird. A car, far away.” She pauses, feels her breath coming a little easier. “A dog barking.”

Joe hums in agreement. “Three things you can smell.”

Nile’s eyes flutter open, and this time she can meet his gaze. “You’ve been cooking. Garlic and onion.” 

Joe nods, and offers an easy half-smile.

“Cut grass,” Nile adds. “Sweat.”

“Good.” Joe squeezes her hands and Nile blows out a long breath. She can feel her heart slowing, the pain in her chest beginning to fade. Joe shifts a little, maybe to balance better. “Keep focusing on our hands,” he murmurs.

His hands should be rough, Nile thinks, from a thousand years of living; there ought to be something physical to show for all the fighting he’s done. But whatever it is that keeps them upright erases all trace of what his hands have been used for, and Nile closes her eyes again. She sags, holding on, as the storm inside her passes.

“I’m going to sit beside you,” Joe says before he lets her hands go, and then he’s a warm and solid presence at her left. She leans into him instinctively, and he presses back. “Are you okay?”

“Clearly not,” she says, eyes open, wiping sweat from her upper lip with the back of her hand.

“It’s happened to all of us,” Joe says. “We’ve learned how to bring each other back.”

Nile counts her breathing—in for four, hold for four, out for four—and Joe simply sits with her, saying nothing. She’s moved by that kindness, enough that she can feel the hot sting of tears at the back of her eyes, and she lifts her chin against the sensation. “Never felt like this before.”

“Yeah, well,” Joe says, with an eloquent waggle of his hand. “Immortality is a trip.”

She laughs despite herself. There’s a weakness in her limbs, and an ache in her stomach—she still feels dizzy.

Joe stands and looks at her, head tilted to one side. “Think you can move?” he asks. “We should get you food. Sugar. Andy’s hiding the good stuff.” He offers her his hand again and Nile takes it, lets him tug her up and lead her toward the house.

“Do the others . . .” she asks.

“They’re likely watching from the kitchen right now.”

“Do you guys _get_ the concept of privacy?”

Joe laughs softly. “Mostly,” he offers. “It’s a very recent thing.”

There’s still some part of her that wants to flee, to fight, to curse and rage and maybe afterwards, to cry. Maybe there’s time for all of that, she thinks. But for the moment she lets Joe pull her inside to where Nicky and Andy are hovering, trying and failing to look nonchalant. She lets Andy cup the back of her neck, and Nicky pull her into a hug—accepts a cup of strong, sweet tea from Joe’s capable hands.


End file.
